A month ago, Oracle said it would end its stewardship role of Java EE and turn it over to an open source foundation. Following consultations with Java partners such as IBM and Red Hat and after meeting with several foundations, Oracle has settled on an organization that has had a long history in Java development: the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse created its popular Eclipse IDE and managed multiple other Java technologies.

Oracle cited Eclipse’s experience in Java EE and related technologies as why it is transferring Java EE to Eclipse. “This will help us transition Java EE rapidly, create community-friendly processes for evolving the platform, and leverage complementary projects such as MicroProfile,” said Oracle software evangelist David Delabassee. (MicroProfile arose as a Red Hat- and IBM-driven effort to fit Java EE with microservices capabilities last year after part of the Java community feared that Oracle was neglecting the platform. MicroProfile has since moved over to Eclipse.)

"Moving Java EE to open governance and collaboration is going to be a process, not an event,” said Eclipse Executive Director Mike Milinkovich. "Our early discussions with Oracle, IBM, and Red Hat have shown that there is a lot of support for this among their leadership teams.”

Oracle will continue supporting existing Java EE licensees, including those moving to Java EE 8. It also will keep supporting the WebLogic Server Java application server it acquired from BEA Systems a decade ago, and Java EE 8 will be supported in an upcoming upgrade to WebLogic Server.